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Convicted in Aeroflot DDoS-attack case released on parole

MOSCOW, May 27 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) - Pavel Vrublevsky, the co-founder and owner of ChronoPay, one of Russia's largest e-payment providers, has been released on parole, his spokesman Denis Dunyushkin told RAPSI Tuesday.

Last summer, Vrublevsky was found guilty of masterminding a DDoS attack on Aeroflot's website in 2010 and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. The investigators believe that Vrublevsky tried to terminate a service contract to sell e-tickets between Aeroflot and Assist in July 2010, thus eliminating a rival firm.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Vrublevsky instructed Maxim Permyakov, the Chief Security Expert at ChronoPay, to hire Igor and Dmitry Artimovich to hack into Aeroflot's website. The brothers, who used a network of virus-infected computers, were paid over $20,000.

They attacked the website from July 15 to 24, blocking the e-ticket payment system.

Vrublevsky, Permyakov and the Artimovich brothers were charged with organizing a DDoS attack on Aeroflot's website, which is run by the Assist processing company. Aeroflot's online ticket sales system was down for several days.

The firms incurred substantial financial losses. Assist lost 15 million rubles ($488,090) and Aeroflot lost more than 146 million rubles ($4.75 million).

The Artimovich brothers were sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. Permyakov received a two-year suspended sentence.

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